The Myth of Viracocha

Author: Traditional Peruvian

Time Period: 1001 CE–1500 CE

Country or Culture: South America

Genre: Myth

PLOT SUMMARY

The myth of Viracocha begins by explaining that while the civilized Incas revere the sun, there are some who recall that it too is a product of creation. The being that made the sun and the moon and gave life to people and all other beings, they say, is named Viracocha. They remember that the sun and the moon were once equally bright, but the sun grew jealous and threw ashes into the moon’s face to dim it.

Viracocha, the creator of all things, decides to adopt a disguise in order to survey his creation. Dressed as a dirty beggar, he goes to see how the gods are behaving. The disguise is convincing, and none of them knows his real identity.

During his sojourn, Viracocha happens upon a beautiful goddess named Cavillaca. She sits under a fruit-bearing lucma tree, surrounded by llama lambs and weaving white wool. Viracocha forms his semen into a ripe fruit and put it next to her. Cavillaca eats the fruit and becomes pregnant, but she has no idea who the father is. When her son is born, her family admonishes her to find out who has gotten her pregnant. Cavillaca invites all gods living nearby to gather at the tree and lets the baby crawl amongst them, as the baby will know its father. When the baby picks out the dirty beggar, Cavillaca is horrified. Viracocha reveals himself as the great god, but it is too late; Cavillaca has already fled with her son.

Viracocha chases after the mother of his child. Along his way, he encounters a condor and asks where Cavillaca has gone. The condor tells him she is not far, and the great god blessed the condor. Then Viracocha meets a fox and asks where Cavillaca can be found. The fox says he will never find Cavillaca, so Viracocha curses the fox. This pattern continues: he meets a puma, who tells Viracocha she is near, and he blesses it; he encounters parrots, who say she is far, and he curses them. Finally, Viracocha meets a falcon, which guides him to the sea, so he blesses it.

Just as Viracocha catches up to Cavillaca, she plunges into the sea with her son, and they turn to rocks. Viracocha is inconsolable for a time, but then he discovers that there are two virgin daughters of the fish goddess Urpihuachac living nearby. He uses his powers to subdue a giant snake that is guarding them. One daughter turns into a bird and flies away, but the other stays with Viracocha. She shows him the pond where her mother stores all existing fish, and Viracocha smashes its walls, allowing fish into the bodies of water of the world.

Viracocha continues to live among men and teaches them agriculture. Finally, he puts a giant cross on the top of a tall mountain, and when the dawn’s first rays of sunlight light it up, he leaves the world of people and walks west across the sea. The people who have known him remember his greatness and praise him.

SIGNIFICANCE

The story of Viracocha and Cavillaca appears in several forms. The form related by Pádraic Colum in his book Orpheus: Myths of the World (1930), summarized above, begins with a synopsis of another myth, that of the origins of the Inca Empire. It describes how there was a time when people were uncivilized, so after Viracocha creates the sun, it sends its son and daughter to earth at Lake Titicaca. These two, named Manco Cápac and Mama Ocllo, have a golden rod that they use to probe the ground. When they find the place where it goes in, they found the city of Cuzco, the seat of the Inca Empire. They show their new followers how to live as proper human beings: growing crops, raising llamas, wearing clothes, and living in houses.

This version of Viracocha’s story ends by incorporating another tale into its narrative. In it, Viracocha lives for a time in the highlands, showing people how to grow crops on the mountain face. It states that in the end, he builds a cross atop a mountain, and when dawn’s first light hits the cross, the god departs the world of humans. He does so by walking west, right across the surface of the ocean.

In other versions of the story, Viracocha is called Coniraya Viracocha or simply Coniraya and is alternately described as Viracocha himself, a minor god or divine spirit who may be a descendant or reincarnation of Viracocha, or a different version of Viracocha who is both trickster and creator. In a retelling closely analyzed by John Bierhorst in Black Rainbow (1976), in which Coniraya falls into the latter category, he is said to wander secretly through the world to inspect his creation. He takes the form of a bird to spy on the beautiful virgin goddess Cavillaca, here spelled Cahuillaca. All of the gods want to marry her, so Coniraya puts his semen into a ripe fruit to trick her into conceiving his child.

The story as recounted by Bierhorst closely follows Colum’s version until the end, which is quite different. The young virgins he encounters at the sea are the daughters of Urpihuachac and the lowland creator god Pachacamac. There is no giant snake protecting them for Coniraya to overcome, but Urpihuachac herself attempts to kill him in revenge for ravaging one of her virgin daughters and causing the other to turn to a dove and fly away. He pretends to have to urinate and runs off, living the rest of his life in upland villages as a prankster.

This variation is historically significant. In fifteenth-century Peru, as the Inca Empire was becoming the most powerful force in the region, there were indeed two main creator gods. The first, Viracocha, was associated with the highland region; the other, Pachacamac, was associated with the lowlands and the coastal area. The inclusion of Pachacamac in Bierhorst’s version of the myth underscores this opposition, and the fact that Coniraya Viracocha flees to the highlands in the end solidifies his association with the upland mountains.

Whatever the differences between them, however, both versions of the myth are ultimately about the same thing: they speak to the failure of the couple to marry as proper adults. By fleeing Viracocha’s advances after she bears his child, Cavillaca refuses to participate in the cycle of human maturation, which the Incas held as sacred. In the end, she is turned to stone for this transgression. For failing to be a proper husband, as is fitting for an adult, Viracocha lives in the highlands either in a sort of voluntary exile or as a prankster, the latter of which Bierhorst suggests is a form of perpetual childhood.

BIBLIOGRAPHY

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Colum, Pádraic. “Viracocha.” Orpheus: Myths of the World. New York: Macmillan, 1930. 275–79. Print.

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